


a grotto of eager stones

by tomatocages (kittu9)



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: 5 Times, F/M, Gen, Kissing, Unresolved Emotional Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-12
Updated: 2014-03-12
Packaged: 2018-01-15 12:14:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1304518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittu9/pseuds/tomatocages
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes Felicity kisses Team Arrow, but she hasn’t kissed Oliver. Yet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a grotto of eager stones

**Author's Note:**

> Romance is a grotto of eager stones  
> anticipating light, or a girl whose teeth  
> you can always see.  
> (Wendy Xu, "[And Then It Was Less Bleak Because We Said So](http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/247404)")

Felicity has never kissed Oliver, though there have been times when he's been tempted to kiss her—not out of lust or desire, but out of honesty. She wears her heart on her face, and he's noticed it enough to expect it from her.

Felicity has kissed John before, and Roy—usually, Oliver has noticed, before or after they do something dangerous. She's kissed Sara, too, the way someone might tame a wild animal: softly, with respect.

When the four of them return from patrols so hyped up on adrenalin that a sudden movement might startle, Felicity stays utterly still until they calm down, settled in her chair with upright posture and the most tender way of berating them all for their collective idiocy. Oliver appreciates it, because he’s easy enough to set off; he doesn’t like testing himself around her.

It’s weird when her self-preservation instinct manages to rouse itself, though; most of the time, Felicity is fearless long past the point at which she should become afraid. She has a tendency, Oliver has discovered, to stand toe-to-toe with him when they argue. He can’t tell if it’s to make sure he’s actually looking at her, or if she’s calling his body language a bluff. 

Oliver—used to like it when other people touched him. He doesn't care for it now, but the fact remains that every time Felicity puts a hand on his arm, he feels a mixture of profound irritation and gratitude. It's different from how he feels when Thea touches him, or when he spars with Sara and Diggle and one of them lands a hit. It's different from how things were before the island, and different from how things were when he returned.

Oliver is aware of his attraction to her, though he's hesitant to call it love for a number of reasons. What he feels is too big and immediate to get wrapped up in such a small, treacherous word, overshadowed by what he does and what Felicity believes he can do. Love should be simple and clean, Oliver thinks. He hasn’t felt anything like that in a long time.

Watching the way she touches the other members of their little group (out of spite, he tries not to call them a team. The word creeps in anyway), Oliver wonders when and how she learned to read him; wonders if she can sense, within him, a capacity for gentleness.

  

+

 

Oliver leaves them after the quake, which means that Felicity and Diggle spend a lot of time in the foundry ruins: at first for something to do, and later because they know it’s only a matter of time before they bring him home.

They create their own areas of expertise. Diggle hauls wreckage out of the center of the room while Felicity sits cross-legged on the medical table with the guts of her computers laid out in neat rows before her. It takes entire weeks for him to get the space cleared out, and months for her to rewire the electricity.

Sometimes they eat burgers together, picnic-style on one of the mats on the floor. But sometimes Diggle invites Felicity along to dinner with Carly and AJ. It’s a tagalong situation, but Carly at least recognizes Felicity’s face from Big Belly. Diggle is glad of it; he refuses to abandon her.

Not abandoning Felicity means that it’s four of them crammed around an IKEA table meant for three, heads bowed while Carly says grace, and then a whole meal of surface discussion. There’s an unspoken agreement: Diggle and Carly don’t talk about Andy when Felicity’s around, and they don’t talk about their relationship, either. After a while, Diggle invites Felicity along every time they get together, because it’s easier than having a conversation.

There’s still too many things to come between the life he has and the life he wants—Diggle knows that Carly can sense it in him, and he doesn’t blame her when she pulls him aside one night after Felicity leaves and AJ has gone to bed.

“AJ and I already have one man who’s not around, John,” Carly says, and she’s so kind about how she needs to protect herself. Diggle is sorry that she needs to protect herself from him. “We don’t need another one.”

“I know,” he says. “I haven't been around here the way you need.”

“You’re a good man, John,” Carly reminds him. “You’ve been good to me and AJ. I just need to put myself first.”

He’s struck, as always, by the intersection of love and kindness. There’s something about family that has always rattled Digg’s bones; it’s difficult to negotiate.

He knows that Felicity can tell that things have fallen apart, because she doesn’t say a word about it. Felicity is good at understanding things that might otherwise be kept secret; that one of the things Diggle respects in her. Oliver’s absence has made her a thousand times more sensitive.

The night after she figures it out, Felicity goes home early, even though she has no reason to. Diggle has taken to going over the equipment that still looks sound, making notes and plotting about what will stay and what will go, and earlier he nearly cried from laughing when Felicity slapped a hot pink sticky note with “KEEP” written in block letters to the salmon ladder. 

“Smell you later?” she chirps, sliding off the table and gathering her tablet and purse. She leaves the motherboard she’s been staring at on the table (Diggle knows her well enough now that he can tell it’s her treat: she works on it for ten minutes every hour). “Oh, god, not that you smell—I mean, of course you have a smell, you’re kind of sweaty, you work hard and, you know, you’re virile—god who even _says_ that? Sorry—I’ll see you tomorrow.” 

Diggle has the good grace—has always had the good grace—to laugh at her, because she has always been graceful about being laughed at. “You have a good night, Felicity. I’m gonna finish up a few things here.”

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, which I guess means federal offenses are fair game,” Felicity says. “So what I’m saying is feel free to have a wild and crazy night.”

“You’re a shining example,” Diggle touches her shoulder as she passes by him. He appreciates the space she’s giving him now; they’ve been friends for a while now, and she knows almost all of his best stories, but Digg is tired of words.

Felicity turns and reaches out to wrap her free hand around him, and he raises his arms and lets her step close. Felicity hugs him, hard, for a second less than would have been uncomfortable. It’s a grounding gesture.

“You’re a good girl, Felicity,” Digg tells her. He is, he thinks, one of the few people with a starring role in Felicity's life to hold that opinion.

"Goodnight, John," she says, and kisses his cheek. It’s funny; she doesn't even leave a mark.

 

+

 

Felicity kisses Roy after he catches the flu, if Roy can call it a kiss. Roy’s been shaking all night and he’s given up all attempts at training—now he’s just sitting in Felicity’s ergonomic chair, wrapped up in his hoodie, wondering why he even bothered to come in. Oliver’s off driving his motorcycle through the Glades like an idiot, Sara’s working upstairs, and Diggle’s out buying more hospital supplies. (“That’s right, send the person of color out for it,” he’d said on his way out. “For God’s sake, Oliver, you could buy your own gauze. That’s not even a little suspicious.”)

Roy is generally hyper aware of any interaction that could be misconstrued, but even he can tell that Felicity’s gesture is innocent: she wipes his forehead dry and puts her mouth against his face for a long moment before drawing back. Her lips are soft and warm and a little chalky from that lipstick she wears even when it’s after ten o’clock at night. She smells like the tin of cinnamon Altoids Diggle keeps in the first-aid kit. 

Roy realizes then, when she has her face next to his, that she's checking his temperature. All that fancy medical equipment on hand, and they still lose the thermometer every other week.

"No fever," Felicity tells him. "I think you'll live." She's smiling and Roy is feeling miserable, which makes him more surly than usual.

“I’m fine,” he grouses. She’s not really bothering him; Felicity is, without a doubt, the nicest person in Oliver Queen’s group of after-hours friends.

“I know,” Felicity says. She pokes him in the gut a couple times, experimentally. “Good job on that core work, you guys are all disgusting. I just wanted to know how long you were planning on melting all over my desk chair. I kind of need it.”

So much for Felicity being the one nice person on Oliver’s stupid team.

“Fine, good grief. It’s not like there aren’t any other chairs down here. Who’s your decorator?” Roy hauls himself out of her chair and stumbles over to the mats before flopping down. It’s too much effort to go home and sleep the flu off, and Thea’s working upstairs for another four hours. He has nowhere better to be.  

“Honestly, you big baby,” Felicity says from above. She’s followed him to the mats and she kneels down next to him, digging in her cavernous yellow purse. “Here, have some Nyquil, you might as well sleep until Thea’s off work.”

Roy swallows the proffered syrup—true to theme, it’s a poisonous-looking green—and coughs. “I heal fast, I’ll be fine in the morning.”

“Where have I heard that before,” she says, peering at the dosage cap for a second before making one of her odd little _eh, fuck it_ shrugs and jamming it back onto the bottle, unrinsed. “You guys are all alike, I swear, that’s probably why Oliver invited you onto the team. _It’s nothing, Felicity. It’s just a flesh wound, Felicity. I’ll be fine in the morning, Felicity._ I’m just putting you out of my misery.”

She pats him on the head, front and back of her hand again. It has been years since anyone checked Roy for a fever. He’s suddenly, simultaneously homesick for his mother, for Thea, for the lie of an uncomplicated life.

“You’re a really weird lady,” he mutters, slouching down and away from her touch. “Anyone ever tell you that?”

“All the time,” Felicity says. From the sound of her voice, she’s walked back over to her computer bay. “Go to sleep, Roy.”

  

+

  

It's just the two of them, which Sara enjoys. Felicity's working late at Queen Consolidated while Oliver and Diggle attend a gala (it's for work, Oliver says. It's not Arrow business, though, so he's fair to middling unhappy about it). Sara could have gone on patrol, or she could have spied on Laurel—it's one of her pastimes—or she could have listened to yet another voicemail from her mother.

Instead, Sara chose to sneak in the back entrance, climb up the executive elevator shaft, pick the lock on the office suite doors, and keep watch while Felicity wrangles the debris of Oliver's life into some semblance of an order. It was actually, almost, fun: Sara hadn't had to avoid a corporate security system since that last espionage job she ran with Nyssa in Beijing.

Felicity looks up from her computers and adjusts her glasses. She kicked off her shoes when Sara came in, and now she’s sitting on her feet; her toenails show little flashes of lavender polish, grown out to slivers, through her nylons. "You don't have to loom, you know," she says. "I promise I'll still be impressed if you wanted to sit down, put your feet up. Maybe even repose."

"I'd rather stay on guard," Sara says, stilted and a little too cool. She sounds like a character in one of those kdramas Nyssa secretly loves; it’s a perennial problem.

Felicity rolls her eyes and puts one foot down to spin her chair in a slow, deliberate circle; the movement shifts her in and out of the light her desk lamp throws off, so she looks bright and dark from one second to the next. "I’m very impressed," she says. "C'mon, I feel weird putting in headphones when you're six feet away. Odds are fair I won't get assaulted in my place of work even if you come sit by me. Not that your sitting next to me would increase my chances of getting assaulted."

If they were in the foundry, they wouldn't be having this conversation: Sara would be on the salmon ladder. She walks across the room and sits on the edge of Felicity's desk, knocking over a very sloppy tower of business cards in the process. 

"Drat," Felicity says, mildly. "That one was up to three stories, you're my witness." She enters another string of text into the note field of Oliver's calendar; Sara is reasonably sure that Felicity is writing the entire month's event plan in haiku. 

"Why aren't you at the gala?"

"Eh," Felicity says. "Those things are actually horrible when you go for work. Last time I went in my 'official capacity,' I spent the whole time collecting business cards for Oliver and I wasn't even wearing a dress with pockets. Plus I didn't know any of the other EAs yet, so I just tipped a waiter a twenty and Digg and I stood in the back and ate an entire tray of cheese puffs. That part was fun." She glances up at Sara, a funny little twist to her mouth, like she knows she's chattering but is too happy for the company to stop. "Cheese puffs are usually the guaranteed best part of a party. Anyway, Oliver has a meeting tomorrow and he hasn't prepped for it, so he needs a calendar outline before he gets swept up in any grand gestures." 

"I'm hoping you get some serious perks," Sara says. The mention of cheese puffs has made her hungry.

"I buy all of my snacks using quarters from his change jar," Felicity says. "Only the quarters. Want some popcorn?" She kicks her purse out from under the desk. "I have a bag of that gross cheddar-caramel mixture, I can't stop eating it." 

Sara pulls out the popcorn—it reminds her of the kind mom and pop shops sell in parts of the Midwest. (Sara's senior high school trip was to Madison, ostensibly for a college tour but really just to party in another state; flavored popcorn was, at the time, her drug of choice.)The salty-sweet combination, and the creeping texture of dehydrated cheese powder and sugar on her hands, is soothing; it smells exactly like the departmental gift baskets her dad used to smuggle home at the holidays.

Felicity doesn’t really talk to herself while she works, but she does have a specific, work-related body language: finger snaps, color-coded post-it notes, spinning her office chair when she needs to stand up. Sara watches her and keeps eating popcorn, thinks about how someone so awkward and sweet is literally responsible for the wellbeing of so many people. It’s not camouflage: Sara has, at one point or another, weaponized every aspect of her heart and body and knows how to recognize the signs. 

Felicity's phone rings and she glances at the screen before swiping it open. "Officer Lance," she says. "How can I help you?" After a pause, she mutes the microphone and says, "your father wants to have dinner with you tonight. You know, it’s kind of weird that he just calls me when he wants to talk to you, have you still not given him your number? I know you _have_ a phone, I gave you your phone. "

Sara is—paralyzed. Sometimes it hits her that her parents know she is alive, that she can talk to them, even if there are still a lot of things Sara’s never going to actually say. 

“No,” she manages,” I didn’t give him my number.” 

Felicity unmutes the phone and says, "I talked to her, she’s coming," before hanging up.

“I’ve eaten all of your popcorn,” Sara says. She rubs her fingers together; the tips are stained orange. 

“So what,” Felicity rustles through her purse and wraps an oversized silk scarf to wrap around Sara’s neck; Sara is pretty sure it makes her look less threatening, which makes it an excellent disguise. “It’s popcorn, and you’ll just parkour it off later anyways. Not that you need to! You’re fine. Not like, _fine_ fine, but like—it’s not a problem.” She shakes her head and closes her eyes, probably counting down from three again. It’s one of the cutest things about her. Sara can’t help but laugh.

Felicity opens her eyes at the sound and nods, almost to herself: a holdover from her at-work mode. "You'll be okay," she says. She pulls Sara close, a little, so casually that Sara knows Felicity could never be a threat, and kisses her high along the cheek, almost in her hairline.

It's reassuring; Sara leans into the touch for a second, her mind blank and soft. It reminds her of her mother, of Nyssa, of being loved.

"Go eat something your father cooked for you," Felicity says, her cheek laid close and high along the side of Sara’s face. When she pulls away, it reminds Sara—Ollie said that Felicity never talks about her family. Sara is ashamed not to have noticed.

Sara wonders—she has never before thought of this—if she saved something of her parents, when she turned up alive. She wonders if seeing them again saved something of Sara. 

“Wanna come with?” She asks. 

“Too busy,” Felicity says, even though she looks hungry. Sara really did eat all of that popcorn. “Go see your dad, don’t worry about me. I’ll live a little, eat some fake Chinese take-out or something. Oliver keeps the good energy bars in his desk.” She makes a shooing gesture. “Go on! Scoot that booty.” 

“Yes, dear,” Sara says as she gets up to leave.

“Make sure to text me when you’re home safe,” Felicity calls after her. “Otherwise I have a tracking device hidden somewhere on your person, and I’m not afraid to violate your privacy!”

Even halfway down the executive elevator shaft, Sara can almost hear Felicity’s wince.

 

+

 

She knows he can feel her shaking; his touch on her shoulders slips down until he’s holding her hands, and then Oliver says her name and leans down to press his mouth against hers. It’s quick and light, an unencumbered thing. It feels like a good-luck charm, which is utterly ridiculous: Felicity Smoak makes her own luck. 

“If you’re trying to calm me down, it’s not working,” she says. 

“I know better than to make you do anything you don’t want to do,” Oliver says. “Or—to try and stop you from doing what you need to do.” He has that look he gets sometimes: far and away unhappy, almost unreadable, except his jaw isn’t so tense.

“Well,” Felicity slips her hands from his—every time she touches Oliver, she’s shocked by how warm he is—“I guess we’re okay, then.”

He quirks an eyebrow at her and lets her pull her hands free, though he doesn’t step back. He’s so close that she can smell him: hair, leather, terror. “ _Okay_?”

“Oh, for—“ Felicity is supposed to walk through door number two; that’s all Nyssa would tell her. None of them are sure what’s on the other side, but Felicity is hoping she’ll finally, finally find Sara, who’s been missing for six months, ever since Oliver intercepted that message from Ra’s al Ghul. She does not have time for Oliver to have an epiphany. _Felicity_ doesn’t have time to have an epiphany.“Hold my place for me, will you?”

Before Oliver can answer, Felicity reaches up to catch hold of the space along his jaw, and kisses him. It’s almost polite, except for how it isn’t: her top lip overlaps his, and she can’t help but lick it. His mouth is even warmer than the rest of him. She leans her weight into him—Oliver’s hands come up again and rest along her ribs, sliding a little on the printed jersey of her t-shirt—and lets up, and kisses him again. His mouth opens under hers, wet and soft.

“ _Hey_ ,” he breathes when she slips back down. He keeps his hands pressed tight against her, his fingers flexing. She can feel the movement of the tendons in his hands, through the wrist and all the way up to his elbows. Oliver’s face is utterly blank now, but Felicity knows that doesn’t mean anything.

Felicity is still shaking, because she is _not_ Sara Lance, and she did _not_ come to a little understanding with pain a few years back, but she is going to try and save her friend anyway—even if it means running away with Nyssa al Ghul.

“Yeah,” Felicity says. She steps out of his grasp, puts her hand on the door and twists the knob. Her heart is racing along ahead of her. “You can yell at me when I come home.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                


End file.
